Flirting Lesson
by silverheartXD
Summary: A good detective needs to be able to flirt in pressed situations. Holmes realizes reluctantly that if he doesn't learn Russell the art of flirt, then who will? Please Review!
1. Chapter 1

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_I looked around us, suddenly remembering we were in a crowded restaurant and not home in comfortable solitary Sussex, where in the worst a sheep or two would overhear us. Luckily those at the other tables seemed more interested in each other than the elder gentleman in blank shoes, fancy suit and his dark, graying hair pomaded elegantly, all in all looking quite distinguished, trying to learn his more than three times younger female companion who at the moment were dressed in a quite revealing blouse and an almost non-existing shirt, all in all looking like she'd just stepped out of a, to say it outright, more tatty part of London (which I actually had), how to flirt._

It was not a rare sight in the 1918th London, to find a little cozy restaurant filled with smoke, people, arguing voices, romantic, flirting couples of all sorts and the penetrating smell of English food on a Saturday night. Nor was it a particularly rare sight, finding a certain frustrated amateur detective sitting in one corner of such a restaurant, putting out one cigarette after another and making disturbed sounds.

The unusual part lay in the fact that it wasn't the complexity of a case being the reason for his disturbance, since our recent case had been solved and finished no more than one our ago, with help from an object which we had been forced to "borrow" from Lestrades' office. That very object had been the missing link that had leaded us directly to the murderers nest. Neither was it boredom that burdened the great detective's mind, as that couldn't thoroughly explain the thoughtful and even anxious glances he sent me, his apprentice and sort of partner, across the table from time to time.

It really was quite disturbing.

"Oh just tell me Holmes!" I exclaimed in the end, making a nearby couple jump in their seats. He lit another cigarette while carefully holding his eyes fixed on the cigarette instead of me. "Something is bothering you, and that 'something' concerns me in one way or another." I continued in a lower voice.  
"Oh, I was only… lingering over the, I must admit, slightly unexpected level of creativity in some of the…" he paused to sent an absent-minded glance at a waiter who was sneaking a silver fork into his inner pocket. "…methods you pulled off in the newly solved case of ours. "  
"You mean when I hid on Lestrade in order to give you time to break into his office and steal the painting with Mr. Harpers fingerprint on it?" The cigarette in his hand froze like the rest of him, but when he spoke it was with a casual tone which could've fooled many to think him calm and relaxed. Not me though. "When I ordered you to distract Lestrade in any possible way that came to your mind, I had imagined something a little less… extreme."

It made quibbles go down my spine, by the very thought of Holmes having witnessed that rather awkward scene between Lestrade and I. He, having luckily had a drink or to with lunch, had been too overwhelmed by my sudden increased attention and the sweetness of my young features, to notice my beating heart, clumsy motions, experimental and unsure attempts and unsuccessful effort to hid my disgust for his brandy breath (surrounding me in the intimate moment of me straightening his tie, while sending him what had been meant as seducing glances), clammy, damp hands (which stroke me gently over my cheek, so quickly there wasn't time for my natural response to smack it away and slap him in the face. Luckily perhaps) and sticky bristles (…let's not go further into that).

All in all, a sight that, no doubt had been screaming out my _lack_ of experience.

I tried to hide my insecurity behind a mask of breezy confidence. "Extreme? Me? Now I thought persuading and distracting were the most useful powers a consulting detective possesses." I suddenly remembered something I've read in the Strand many years earlier, and a teasing smile approached on my face, a way of getting back at him from his invasion of my privacy by sneaking on me and Lestrade. "Didn't dear old Watson mention something just like that in the adventure of Augustus Milverton? Something about a young maid whose information's you were very interested in possessing, one way or anoth…"

"It really isn't worthy of you to refer to Watson's babbles Russell." He interrupted before I could go any further, an embarrass wrinkle between his eyebrows having appeared. I held my hands out in surrender, actually rather pleased with myself for distracting him from the Lestrade-subject. In a while we just sat. The couple nearest us was the only one not talking loudly, I noticed, but only, did I discover by turning my gaze, because their mouths were now occupied elsewhere. Finally Holmes sighed. "Actually, in that particular case Watson, unfortunately I might say, did not build the story out of romanticism and fiction completely. You are right, in my head-over-heels obsession of winning over Milverton, I did charm a maid, innocent and not able to resist my attention, the spark in my eye and my unshaved presence, my methods clearly crossing the accepted limits of a respective detective, even a consulting one. I promised to marry her, even sealed the 'deal' with a kiss." He sipped his drink, eyes some other place, certainly not here.

I had trouble visualizing the great detective in plumber-disguise with ruffled hair and dirty face, kissing a maid behind a three. Like some bad romance novel. Just the idea of my mentor and guardian kissing _anyone_ was hard to visualize, and not something I had given much thought ever before; him being one of the most celebrated bachelors, and what I had early discovered in my own relationship to the man; him always being strictly gentlemanly towards me and behaving like nothing more or less than him the teacher and I the promising student.

"Poor girl," I said after a while, making his eyes once again focus on the present. "She probably didn't get a chance; you're right, you can be terribly charming when you want to be. In return the girl would probably have divorced you anyway, finding out how terribly cross you are when a train is late, and how bad your breath becomes after a third-pipe-problem." I teased him, trying to lift the mood a bit. He smiled, but there was something inscrutable even wondering in his eyes. I couldn't truly believe no one had told him he was charming before. Or no one had complained about his tobacco breath.

He finished the drink and looked at me, a almost cheerful spark in the grey eyes having appeared. "Now don't think I have forgotten what we were talking about earlier Russell."


	2. Chapter 2

"Detectives use of persuasion in need of achieving something?" I asked all innocent, though inside damning him not being senile yet.  
"Yes." Holmes said, looking like he suddenly realized what an uncomfortable subject that was, and one he wished he hadn't started, but there was no escape now. As he sighed, I realized this was what he'd wanted to talk to me about the whole evening. "It is true that I have from time to time been having advantage of the, shall we say, calming 'power', I have been told now and then, to posses over women." It wasn't hard to conclude by his raise of an eyebrow as he said the words 'now and then' that Watson was the guilty one. "I've especially found it useful when it comes to frantic witnesses, but also in simply getting the information I needed or in having to withhold someone in a period of time, just like you achieved today with Lestrade…" An almost, _almost_ apologetic twist of his thin lips appeared. "Forgive me, but I have to say in a slightly more efficient than elegant manner."  
"It really isn't gentleman-behavior to peep on a woman when she's… practicing." I said in need of better word, doing my best to sound offended. "You were completely right before, you are no gentleman and never have been." I knew he was right in everything he said, but his words still annoyed me extremely, especially when said in that superior way. I had wanted to give him a little back, but he didn't look offended at all.  
"Oh, but why spoil a performance of that caliber?" He just said, ignoring my last words and smiling to himself the devil. I couldn't hide a blush from my face any longer. "Oh you'd seen better performances, I'm sure." I said ironical, the irritating thought popping into my head of Irene Adler being a performer. "But still, it worked so I can't really see where you're going with all this." He sighed, "As I said before, to be an investigator, and especially to be it with _me_," He smiled wryly. "is almost impossible without now and then finding yourself in situations where flirting isn't just fooling around with Lestrade, hoping he let himself be fooled, but a matter of saving ones life, or ones partners. If you and I are to become something in the sort of that definition, I would like to make sure I'm not going to end up in a number of possible uncomfortable situations, because you haven't been thoroughly and carefully prepared to, coolly and without hesitation or showing any insecurity, make an absolute professional distraction, which could be the one and only rescue for me. Do you agree?  
"I wasn't fool…"  
"All right, new question; do you understand the matter of importance?"  
"Yes."  
"Good…" The next part was clearly hard for him to get off his chest. "So you can probably see why it is of outer importance that I… that I teach you to do it properly. And I don't see what could be a better time or place than here, a Saturday night in a crowded restaurant where no one will wonder if we should turn a little…" He cleared his throat, "Friendly."


	3. Chapter 3

For a time I just stared at him, unable to let his words sink completely in. In a way I had expected something like this, feeling how he'd been beating about the bush all evening, avoiding to say what he could have just told me to begin with, and in less fancy words; Let me teach you to flirt Russell, you stink at it, and I don't want to end up dead in an alley, because you don't know your stuff. Of course he wouldn't say that, I mean then he wouldn't be Holmes. Still I almost couldn't believe it was he saying those words, the same man, who cleared his throat and left the room under some bad excuse, every time Watson as much as started talking about me finding any 'fellow' up that university of mine. The man who saw women as aliens, and literally fainted the first time I showed up in a dress. The man famous for his bachelorhood, and always sticking strictly to a gentlemanly distance at my womanhood, both when come to the privacy of my toilette during a case, as to the other meaning of the word. It simply couldn't. "As your teacher and nothing more," He added, turning slightly nervous after waiting for me to say something, and realizing I wasn't going to. "Forgive me Russell, but your experiments with poor Lestrade, despite them being ehm, charming and … sweet, seemed to have a lack of experience."

Now it was my turn to keep my gaze carefully fixed on my hands while talking. "Well, I…" My first chock had calmed down by now, but instead I felt taken a-back by finding myself exchanging my, in this case _lack_ of love-life with my more than three times older mentor and guardian, who were looking perhaps even more uncomfortable than I. "I've never quite found an opportunity to… The boys at Oxford aren't quite…"

"None have shown interest?" I took the slight surprise in his voice as a compliment, and it made me smile gently. "No no, some were, I just didn't know just how to… respond. Guess I haven't had any real mother substitute to tell me these sorts of things. Except perhaps Mrs. Hudson, but the little she could tell me was sort of out-of-date."  
"Ah. I see." He nodded in understanding, or well trying his best to understand the world of young women, not something he had been involved much in during his former life. That is, not at all actually before nearly being trampled by one on a Sussex hill three years earlier. "I'm sorry, I've never left much thought to the parenting roles I myself could not fill for you. I do hope Mrs. Hudson has informed you of the… other aspects of womanhood?" When I nodded in response, his look of total relief was so amusing I couldn't help start laughing, which appeared to be a difficult thing stopping, once started. Holmes came as far as smiling, though with an ironic raise of one eyebrow, eyes turning slightly inside his head as a respond to my absurdity.

When I finally stopped, I found the silence between us to have changed into something almost solid, the air between us filled with anxious electricity. It suddenly occurred to me that our shoes were slightly touching under the table, and felt like moving them away and nearer at the same time. At last he cleared his throat, attaining his teaching voice. "All right, lesson started." I hurried to get hold of myself. "Lesson one; it's a good idea to talk to your 'victim' about some interest he has, then let him babble about it, while you listen to it like there's nothing more exiting in the whole world, even if you're bored to death." "Wait a minute, Holmes," I cut in. "How do I know what to ask about?" He sent me a disapproving look, like we were in a classroom, he the teacher and I the student who had just fail to answer a simple question, not in a restaurant filled with, now the families had gone home to bed, flirting couples. Like us, I thought with a smirk. "Are you listening Russell?" I hurried to nod. "If the guy got a briefcase, you ask him about the currency of the pound, and…"  
"…If he has soil under his nails, I ask him of rhododendrons." I finished the sentence.  
"Exactly. I'll make a demonstration; miss Russell, would you please care to tell me about the relationship between Buddha and Jesus."  
"Seriously?"  
"Seriously." After eyeing him suspiciously I started, unsure at first, but eventually more freely, to talk about my greatest passion in the world; theology. Though I wouldn't have thought it possible, he seemed to show a true interest in what I was telling him, even asking intelligent questions in the right moments, making me talk more and more freely. Without me noticing it, we had moved considerably closer to each other, our hands centimeters from each other and knees meeting under the table. I felt totally warm, free spirited, relaxed and comfortable in his company now, and felt like there was nothing I couldn't say to him, and all shields of proper behavior and the fact we weren't actually alone in comfortable Sussex where, in the worst, a sheep or two would overhear us, forgotten. All there ever had and did exist were the sound of my excited voice and, of course, Holmes.

Holmes with his warm smile, the very heat from his body, the feeling of him near me, the smell of tobacco and honey wine from his mouth, those tempting, thin, slightly curved lips looking so unfairly soft, the wrinkles lining up the very essence of the personality hidden in his face, invisible for many, but quite clear for me; all from the little soft wrinkles peeking out from the corner of his mouth, always ready to form the twisty smile I liked so much, to the deep lines decorating his high forehead, a spider web of wrinkles able to crush together in revulsion, academic frustration or simply troublesome emotions he can't deal with or simply smoothing out in peaceful, sincere tiredness, the scent of pomade reaching me from his high, aristocratic, pale forehead, were his shinny, black hair was brushed back perfectly as always, except one unwilling little lock of hair, curling down his soft-looking skin.

It was odd how much I felt like reaching up and brush it back. Not to mention his eyes. I'm not sure I'd ever seen this much warmth and spirit in them before, the flicking candlelight reflecting in those intense, dark, glittering pupils. The eyes narrowed, which mixed with his curved lips gave an expression of gentle amusement, peeking right under the always slightly controlled surface of his.

I realized I had begun to repeat myself in my list of Jesus references in Hinduism, plus that I had moved so close to Holmes I could feel his sweet breath on my face, unable to tear my gaze away from his. I blinked in bewilderment, shook my head gently like to shake all the improper thoughts out of it, and leant abruptly back in my chair, trying desperately to remember what in the world my point had been with the last reference, which I realized I couldn't recall either. I therefore started talking about some random subject, knowing it was my only task in the moment, to keep talking. I felt my cheeks slightly redden of irritation, cursing inside my head over how well Holmes distraction worked on me already.


	4. Chapter 4

After a while of having carefully kept my eyes to myself, I started talking about Salomon's mines being mentioned in the Koran, and Holmes, looking more cool and relaxed than ever, turned his face a fraction away from mine, lifted his cigarette very slowly to his mouth, managing to keep my eyes fixed on the damn thing. As my gaze followed it up to his thin, sensitive, soft lips, I just watched them surround the thing, holding my breath while seeing him waiting the split of a second before inhaling the smoke deeply and intimate, making the hollow in his cheeks deepen, his eyelids lowering, eyes turning inside his head, and me nearly faint. After pausing there for a long moment of pure ecstasy, he finally let go of the remaining smoke, letting it out in swirling ray of particles through that small whole shaped by his lips.

I swear to god, normally he would just suck the damn thing, and blow the smoke out!

I finally recalled how to breathe, and wished it was I not he, whose body possessed fresh nicotine as it might've be able to calm my beating heart.

His eyes half opened and he turned to look at me, his eyes now darker than ebony, glimpsing dangerously in the candlelight, like the brightest most mystic-surrounded star on the entire sky, had taken hold in them. His twisty smile seemed to be victorious, amused and summoning at the same time, perceptive as if he knew exactly what had been going through me, body more than mind, during this little 'performance' of his.

My brain now seemed complete and entirely empty for all the theology knowledge I had stored there, during my 18 years of studying the subject. Not that I cared much anymore. My mind was divided between a dazzled Russell wanting to lay down at the man in front of me's feet and worship him, and another Russell irritated to death of his clearly control of the situation (and my pulse), who were not going to let him win, not in chess and neither in this, a game just as well only in this there were no rules.

"So Russell," Holmes had finished his cigarette and was putting it out, though instead of the ashtray, his eyes were fixed on me. "You were enlightening me of the fictional Allan Quatermain's famous discoveries of Salomon's perhaps fictional mines being in the bible, whose own reliability can be looked at as controversial. But then, who am I to judge?" I smiled at the man in front of me, ironic and entertaining as always.

"Oh but Holmes, you _do _have a point there." I began, then paused to reach up and release my long, blond hair from the knoll on top of my head, letting it pour down my back in a waterfall of wavy gold, swinging it freely in ovals, and last letting my fingers go through it and pouring it up in a airy, more free-spirited hairstyle than I was used to. I felt more than a little smug, when noting that Holmes clearly hadn't been ready for that. "There, just making sure no one will make the mistake of believing you to be 'friendly' to a boy. If you, Sherlock Holmes himself, could make that mistake at our first time meeting, I better be on the safe side."

"Now wait a minute, to my defense you were wearing those ridiculous unfitting and unmistakably male clothes… and had the temper of a young bull." The last was said so low it wasn't meant for me to hear. "But believe me," He continued and sent me an elevator-glance, dwelling for the split of a second at my undercover-clothes, which were pretty revealing and raised an eyebrow. "To night no one, no matter how senselessly drunk one might be, could make that mistake."  
"Was that a compliment Holmes?" He shrugged his shoulders, and draw in another breath of nicotine. "You were saying something about me having a point?"

"Oh that's right. Being fictional yourself, you really should open your mind more to the thought of every tale, even the biblical ones, having basis in reality, not to mention the supernatural creatures, who you speak so ill of. You of all should know how they must be feeling, always being accused for not existing. When first I saw you, it was like seeing a ghost standing quite alive in front of me. At the time you were still no more than electrical vibrations in Doyle's brain to me, not bad ones I admit, but still no more than that, and suddenly there you were; a fictitious 'ghost' standing on a Sussex hillside, marking bees. It actually was a quite disturbing moment of revelation." Holmes smiled at me, more sweetly and thereby more dangerously than ever. "Well Russell," He leaned forward till I could tell exactly what his drink had contained (vodka, lime, tomato juice, Tabasco and a hint of celery salt). "Perhaps then it's time for me to prove to you just how …" he paused to brush his fingertips lightly against my cheekbone, which in the warm and snug room felt like brief, cool raindrops on my heated skin, making pleasant quibbles go down my spine. "… real I am." I realized I was shivering, and certainly not of cold, though that was the explanation I would use, should Holmes ask. "That could easily have been the brief, windy touch of a ghost." I pointed out to him. "You have not yet convinced me completely Mr. Holmes. Hypothetically, of course." I added with a playful spark in the eye.  
He raised one slightly surprised eyebrow; then took up the challenge with an as-you-please smile, which I must admit I hadn't expected him to, even at this point. He picked up my trivial student hands with his own long, tender, almost spidery hands studying them for a moment making the earth stop spin, before raising them slowly to his mouth and pressing his cool lips gently to the back of them, as lightly as if I were made out of porcelain, without removing his glowing, dark gaze from mine. In the meantime I had once again managed to forget the technique of breathing. He lowered my hands slowly again, and I realized we were both sitting bended over the table, faces inches from each other.

As he lifted his one hand in my direction, he paused and smiled ironically, as if he had to remind himself that he was, in this moment, allowed to reach beyond the boarder of our normal intercourse. He then continued up to gently seize a lock of my hair, shining like golden honey in the faint light, twisting it around his long, tender fingers. His eyes were now all over my hair, shining with true fascination, as if he'd often wondered how exactly it felt touching, but never dared to. Then with gently, cool fingertips he carefully moved little locks of hair away from my face, placing it behind my ear as if uncertain whether it would stay there. All his movements so very careful and hesitant, like he couldn't quite believe he was allowed this unfamiliar pleasure.

I was quite pleasured myself, eyes closed just focusing on the wonderfully thrilling feeling of his tender hands in my hair. As the gentle fingers in my hair disappeared, I opened my eyes to discover Holmes' face closer to me than before. "Now do you believe in my substance, or do I have to kiss you?" The smile in the corner of his mouth said it was a joke, the eagerness in his eyes and tense in his jaw indicated something else. I almost abandoned every last ounce of common sense and self-control, but managed with great effort to get a hold of myself. "Good thing this conversation is only hypothetical" I exhaled, my breathing still uneven. "Oh yes, God yes." He murmured, a frustrated wrinkle having appeared between his eyebrows, sitting upright in his chair and away from me. "…But you know," I added in hast, leaning almost desperately myself across the table. "In theory, those brief touches could also simply have been a hair-pixie." The raised eyebrow-look he sent me over his newly lightened cigarette was one of his memorable ones, hinting one should admit to hospital as soon as possible, if not madhouse. "…Hair-pixie?" He repeated after a while, his voice seriously dubious. "Yes, hair-pixies, you know those fiddling with your hair now and then, to simply disappear in thin air, ehm, often mentioned in the Grimm brothers' adventures and stuff like that" He looked at me for about 30 long seconds his gaze expressionless, which I returned the best I could, neither of us moving a muscle, before suddenly… "Well, whatever remains, however impossible…" As the words came out, Holmes dropped his cigarette on the floor and moved determined forwards, hastily closing the few feet distance between our faces. Aas his warm, welcoming mouth so tender and fierce at the same time collided with my own unprepared as well as inexperienced, but yet quickly learning everything it needed to know, thereby my world ended, and somewhere in my subconsciousness I noted that I owed Lestrade a sincere thank you for being so unattractive, making me in need of an innocent, little flirting lesson.


End file.
